On the other hand I am here in San Francisco. Seeing some of you whom I consider my friends upset about not being invited to a party is upsetting to me. If you know me, you know that I would gladly take dollars out of my pocket and make sure you drink, eat and have a good time. But really that is not what it is about. As Rich said we have a waiting list for sponsors, so money is not the issue.

There are two issues at play here and they are very different. I want to make sure we understand that.

Issue 1: This is a party for the bloggers by the bloggers. As Rich wrote, that has always been the idea behind the bloggers meetup and the blogger awards. It is a marketing free zone. No PR, no marketing, only bloggers. If you don’t blog, podcast or write about security, you should not be there. Have people gotten been admitted in years past who didn’t blog? Yes. Some names always sneak in that we don’t catch. If you were lucky enough to get in one year, doesn’t mean you will next year or even this year though.

Will this change in the future? I really don’t think so, though I think we need to do a better job of defining what qualifies. We will get started on that as soon as this years event is in the books.

Issue 2: Just because you are invited, who can you bring with you. I hear you on this one. I brought my wife out with me to RSA this year for the first time. If she had not already gone home, I would be hard pressed to not bring her with me to the party. Same goes for your significant other, best friend, partying buddy, etc. But guys it really becomes an issue of space. The location has capacity rules, if we go over the SFFD can close the whole thing down. We can’t do it. As Rich said we will look into a bigger place for next year and look at how we accommodate these kinds of requests. But for this year, the cake is already baked.

So if I or any of us have offended you, pissed you off or you think we are being arbitrary and capricious, please forgive us. We are really do try to throw the best party and awards we can for the security blogger community! Write to me with suggestions and we will do better next year.

For those two hundred or so of you who did get an invite, I am looking forward to lifting a glass and catching up.